If anyone's tired of reading about the continuing saga of NWN's toolset, just let me know, and I'll scamper...
Hi As the lead programmer on the NWToolset, I figured it's about time I actually spoke up to address some of the comments that have been made in regards to its portability.
First of all, no one, no one wants a cross-platform NWToolset more than I do; I absolutely guarantee it.
When we started development on NWN a few years ago, these were our requirements for what would become the NWToolset: 1. Use C++ - to share some of the game's source files. This also makes it easier to do nifty things like display the areas in the program itself to give the module designers a real sense of how their stories will look and play.
2. Fast Development - so the designers can start making the game as fast as possible. This had the consequence of requiring us to select a Windows development environment initially since that's the platform we use on our machines internally.
3. GUI Flexibility - not at the beginning of the development cycle, at the end, when we would be doing our final analysis on all the form layouts, control interfaces, etc...
4. Cross-Platform - we all know about this one. Make the NWToolset available on every platform the game supports. ;^) The first 3 requirements eliminated using the game engine itself, all native Linux and Mac development platforms as well as VB, Visual C++ (and MFC), Delphi, Powerbuilder, SQLWindows, any Java variants and left us with C++ Builder. It was decided that we would try to design with portablity in mind and hopefully have the tools, time and resources available to do the ports later, either ourselves or have some other company do it.
While business decisions sometimes force us to change our plans, we haven't lost site of the goals.
Don -------------------- Don Moar, BSc Lead Programmer, Tools BioWare Corp.
To the extent they're still trying to achieve the "goal" of a cross-platform Toolset, I suppose there's reason for guarded optimism...
The first 3 requirements eliminated using the game engine
itself, all native Linux and Mac development platforms as well
as VB, Visual C++ (and MFC), Delphi, Powerbuilder, SQLWindows,
any Java variants and left us with C++ Builder. It was decided
that we would try to design with portablity in mind and
hopefully have the tools, time and resources available to do the
ports later, either ourselves or have some other company do it.
Metrowerks, hello ...
Also, Java allows you to wrap C++ APIs for Java objects so that you can do the easy UI bits with prepackaged parts, and have the high-performance bits use whatever engine you like. A good Java programmer could have built them a UI and wrapped their APIs in cross platform JNI interfaces.
Translation: someone on the devel team had a hard-on for Builder, so it was the easiest to do. In software development, the quickest solution is almost never the best long term solution. But in the US economy, time to market and turning a quick buck is the only thing that matters.
Comments
Hi
As the lead programmer on the NWToolset, I figured it's about time I actually spoke up to address some of the comments that have been made in regards to its portability.
First of all, no one, no one wants a cross-platform NWToolset more than I do; I absolutely guarantee it.
When we started development on NWN a few years ago, these were our requirements for what would become the NWToolset:
1. Use C++ - to share some of the game's source files. This also makes it easier to do nifty things like display the areas in the program itself to give the module designers a real sense of how their stories will look and play.
2. Fast Development - so the designers can start making the game as fast as possible. This had the consequence of requiring us to select a Windows development environment initially since that's the platform we use on our machines internally.
3. GUI Flexibility - not at the beginning of the development cycle, at the end, when we would be doing our final analysis on all the form layouts, control interfaces, etc...
4. Cross-Platform - we all know about this one. Make the NWToolset available on every platform the game supports. ;^)
The first 3 requirements eliminated using the game engine itself, all native Linux and Mac development platforms as well as VB, Visual C++ (and MFC), Delphi, Powerbuilder, SQLWindows, any Java variants and left us with C++ Builder. It was decided that we would try to design with portablity in mind and hopefully have the tools, time and resources available to do the ports later, either ourselves or have some other company do it.
While business decisions sometimes force us to change our plans, we haven't lost site of the goals.
Don
--------------------
Don Moar, BSc
Lead Programmer, Tools
BioWare Corp.
To the extent they're still trying to achieve the "goal" of a cross-platform Toolset, I suppose there's reason for guarded optimism...
Woo.
Metrowerks, hello ...
Also, Java allows you to wrap C++ APIs for Java objects so that you can do the easy UI bits with prepackaged parts, and have the high-performance bits use whatever engine you like. A good Java programmer could have built them a UI and wrapped their APIs in cross platform JNI interfaces.
Translation: someone on the devel team had a hard-on for Builder, so it was the easiest to do. In software development, the quickest solution is almost never the best long term solution. But in the US economy, time to market and turning a quick buck is the only thing that matters.
_/ C